Uber boss Travis Kalanick told staffers at 2013 Miami party to make sure any hook-ups were consensual
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SAN FRANCISCO — Uber CEO Travis Kalanick urged attendees at a 2013 company party to make sure sex was consensual and discouraged anyone from throwing kegs off a building, according to an internal memo obtained by tech news site Recode.
«Do not have sex with another employee UNLESS a) you have asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic ‘YES! I will have sex with you’ AND b) the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command, » Kalanick wrote, according to the memo. «Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip. #CEOLife #FML.»
#FML is a crude euphemism for lamenting one’s situation in life.
The email to employees was obtained Thursday by Recode, which added that the document was part of an investigation into 215 incidents of sexual harassment, bullying and other workplace transgressions being reviewed by law firm Perkins Coie.
A spokesperson for Uber did not respond to a request for comment on the memo. Perkins Coie referred inquiries to Uber.
While the email addressed a number of party-related questions, the pointed counseling on hook-ups has particular resonance given former engineer Susan Fowler’s February blog post in which she detailed sexual harassment by her boss.
When she reported the incident, she was told her boss was too valuable to the company to punish, and that she herself might receive a negative review for surfacing the matter. She later encountered other women at Uber who had encountered similar instances of sexual harassment by the same manager.
The law firm’s findings, which have not yet concluded, led Uber to fire 20 employees Tuesday. On June 13, Uber is expected to release recommendations resulting from an internal investigation led by former U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Kalanick’s email offers a stark and unvarnished look inside its culture, teeming with slang and expletives not unfamiliar to frathouses. The warnings sound eerily prescient: In 2015, after a notorious party in Las Vegas, two employees were fired: one after a general manager who groped a fellow employee, and another staffer who brought a prostitute to his hotel room then called police when she stole from him, according to two former employees who asked that USA TODAY not use their names for fear of retribution.
In briefing employees on an Oct. 2013 party in Miami to celebrate the company’s 50th global city, Kalanick first explained the reason for the gathering and then segued into a list of guidelines.
These included a caution that Uber: wasn’t inclined to bail anyone out of jail; discouraged employees not to «throw large kegs off tall buildings, » then named two employees who presumably had once done so; frowned on drugs and narcotics; and would levy a $200 «puke charge» for anyone so unfortunate.
The final don’t on Kalanick’s list was an admonition not to talk to the press, or anyone outside the company. «Keep confidential stuff confidential… no rev (revenue) figures, driver figures, trip figures… don’t talk about internal process, and don’t talk about initiatives that have not already launched.»
On the CEO’s «Do» list was that employees should get to know each other and «have a ——ing good time!»
